Introduction

“Marriage is a path to misery and a transition of loss marked by giving up and missing out.” This is the message that, surprisingly enough, is emanating from both leftwing journalists like Amy Shearn, who tells us in The New York Times that “Married motherhood in America… is a game no one wins,” and rightwing online influencers like Andrew Tate, who claim “there is zero advantage to marriage in the Western world for a man”—especially because “it’s very common that women” divorce their husbands. Given the rise of so many anti-marriage voices in the public square, not to mention technological, cultural, and educational shifts that have made it harder to find a romantic partner, it should come as no surprise that a growing share of young adults are discounting marriage and turning towards work as the focus of their lives. One Pew Research Center survey found, for instance, that today’s men and women are about three times more likely to consider “career enjoyment” as the “key to living a fulfilling life,” compared with “marriage.”

But what many elites and ordinary Americans alike do not realize is that, in general, married men and women across the United States are much more likely to be both prosperous and happy than their single peers. Married men and women, for instance, have about 10 times the assets as their single peers in their 50s, heading towards retirement, as Brad Wilcox notes in his book, Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization. Perhaps more importantly, both married men and women are almost twice as likely to be “very happy” with their lives, compared to their unmarried peers, according to Get Married. They also report more meaning and less loneliness than their unmarried peers. These results parallel other recent research from University of Chicago economist Sam Peltzman indicating that for both men and women, marriage is “the most important differentiator” of who is happy in America. Meanwhile, Peltzman concluded that falling marriage rates are a chief reason why happiness has declined nationally. His research found an astounding 30-percentage-point happiness gap between married and unmarried Americans.

Although the research on the benefits of marriage is robust, it is also clear that the benefits of marriage do not generally extend to men and women who experience persistent marital unhappiness or end up divorced. Accordingly, it is important to understand what factors predict marital quality and stability in the twenty-first century. 

Increasing knowledge about how to create a loving and lasting marriage is particularly important for the rising generation, as recent studies show that most teens and young adults continue to have plans to one day get married and have children. In fact, the MAST Center (or Marriage Strengthening Research & Dissemination Center) recently analyzed the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) and found that 95% of teens ages 15 to 19 still hope to get married when they get older.

Unfortunately, some young adults are losing confidence that they can actually have the successful marriage they hope for. This is because they have not seen good models of marriage in their own families of origin and have not been taught how to make a marriage that will last. They do not understand that not all marriages are the same. We often do not distinguish between different types of marriages in our cultural narrative about couple relationships. But the truth is that different couples marry for different reasons, have different priorities, and have different patterns of interaction.

Young people are frequently unaware of the fact that different kinds of marriages have unique profiles of risk factors and protective factors, and because of this, the divorce rate varies greatly. They have never been told that many marriages have strong foundations that make them incredibly resilient and enduring. And they certainly are not aware that many of the most important protective factors that contribute to an enduring and flourishing marriage are controllable and fall within the scope of their agency.   

There is a growing need to help young people understand that the true roots of enduring marriage are within their reach and that there are proactive ways that they can initiate and form an enduring union. Given young adults’ high desire for marriage, understanding the truth of how loving and lasting marriages are formed can help the rising generation have confidence in their own ability to pursue this path in their own lives. 

Helping young people achieve their life goals of marriage is deeply important because a happy marriage is one of the best predictors of life satisfaction for men and women. Accordingly, in this report from the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute, we sought to find the top attitudes and behaviors that were predictive of a high-quality and stable marriage in a recent survey of married men and women.

Read the full report here.